BANGALORE: As the general trend goes, the percentage of students going for higher education after Pre-University comes down to some extent and the conversion rate further drops between graduation and post-graduation level.
Many state universities offer integrated courses where candidates can enrol in specialised courses and after five years, they can graduate with a double degree.
The university authorities may have introduced integrated courses to encourage higher studies, but only some find integrated courses useful and others feel that they are not of much help.
Options at BU
For one, Bangalore University (BU) offers an Integrated MSc in biological sciences, which is a five-year course with 10 semesters.
Coordinator of the course Dr Puttaraju said they were offering this course for the past four years. “There is an intake of 16 seats in addition to eight quota seats. Every year, we get around 200 applications, of which 20 to 21 candidates get admitted to the course in every batch,” he said. Explaining further, Puttaraju said in this course, students study various branches of biological sciences, including botany, zoology, microbiology and biotechnology. “The university has notified that students who pass this particular degree are eligible to teach all subjects for students, who are pursuing degree and master degree in any of these courses. This will be an additional benefit to students,” he said.
Not the same
But not all the integrated courses are the same as biological sciences.
Official sources from Integrated MSc at the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department in Bangalore University said they also had 16 seats plus eight quota seats.
“We don’t attract enough candidates. Every year, hardly two or three candidates join, when we need, at least, five candidates to run the course. Though BU is offering this course for the past four years, it is continuing without many takers,” said a source in BU.
Option not taken
Last year, BU came up with a four-year Bachelor of Science (BS) course. Students, after completing the course, are eligible to seek admission for a one-year Master of Science (MS) course and a twoyear PhD programme, which are optional.
A student can discontinue at any point of time both the BS and MS. Only that not many colleges came forward to start this course during 2010-11.
Students unhappy
Ramanathan (name changed) is in the second year of one such integrated course offered by the Bangalore University.
He said he did not find the course very useful but there was no option but to continue.
According to him, if the student didn’t like the course, he or she couldn’t discontinue in the middle of the course and had to complete all five years.
Expert opinion
Commenting on integrated courses, Executive Director and Member-Secretary of the Karnataka Knowledge Commission M K Sridhar said these courses should not be just a combination of undergraduate and postgraduate course syllabi.
“There is a need to look beyond this,” he said.
Giving an example, he said the Regional Institute of Eduction under BU offered a four-year integrated course in Bachelor of Education (BEd), in which students were trained to be a teacher from the first year itself.
“In the regular degree plus BEd course, students will pursue a degree and then the BEd course. Only when they study BEd, candidates will get to learn actual teaching,” he said.
He stressed that the universities should follow a model similar to the one followed by the Regional Institute of Eduction.